Wednesday, 25 September 2013

A Love Letter to the Luther College Registrar

Dear Luther College Registrar,

Thank you for being so wonderful and simple and easy. Thank
you for doing registration online. Thank you for just making me click a button
at a certain time on a certain day. Thank you for clearly communicating to me
when my registration time is. Thank you for having set days for registration and not
having a million and making me run around campus like a chicken with its head
cut off. Thank you for not making me run across campus
over three separate days collecting signatures from who the fuck knows in
different departments. Thank you for not making me physically wait in line for hours and hours. I love you. I am so excited to register with you in Spring of 2014.
Our reunion will be amazing. I am sorry I took advantage of you for so
long—never again. I am yours forever.

With all my love,

Maja

The last three days of registration here have been complete
chaos. I have never been so stressed/crabby/anxious about school basically ever. The
system for registering for classes at the University of Nottingham is totally
different from our system at Luther. None of it is online, and instead you have
to run around campus getting your entry form signed by all the different
departments you want to take classes in. Not even the Brits know what’s going
on. It’s insane and I hate it. All you do is wait in line. And then sometimes
you’re in the wrong line, sometimes you have to talk to random people to get
into secret add/drop sessions that they don’t tell International Students
about, and sometimes you get in line at 7:45am for registration at 9:00am only
to find out at registration is at 10:00am and so you didn’t need to get up at fucking 6:30am to be first in the
queue. (But if this magically happens to you as well, the building custodians
are very nice so chat with them for a bit to make the wait a little less
boring.)

I am not amused.

But I am proud to say that I was the FIRST PERSON in the
queue not once but twice to register for my classes. And since I am a
nerd/go-getter, I am very happy to say that I was able to get into all the classes I
wanted. Here’s to waking up at an ungodly time and queuing for hours and being
crabby and pissed—and getting what you want! Since I’m only at the Uni
part-time (the rest of my credits are with the Luther group and Bob) I’ll be
taking two classes each semester. This fall, I’ll be taking Polish, and Building
Sovietness: Russian Culture under Lenin and Stalin. I’m taking Polish just for
shits and gigs, because I have time and want to have fun. I like languages and I don’t know if it’s a language I’d ever
be able to teach myself. The Building Sovietness class should count for my
Russian Studies minor, so I’ll have that completely finished after this
semester! In the spring, I’ll be continuing with Polish, and then taking a
history class called A Protestant Nation, focusing on England from 1558-1640.
This is basically the closest I’ll ever come to taking my dream history class.
I was the first person in line at a secret add/drop session and took the last
available spot in the class. Miracles do happen. I’m one lucky girl.

Overall, I am just completely exhausted. This week has been
so stressful. I am so, so, SO relieved to have the classes I want, especially
getting into my dream class. Most of the classes are structured with a 2-hour
lecture and a 1-hour seminar, so I think I’ll only have each class two days a
week. I conveniently have Mondays off, so that will give me a nice long 3-day
weekend this semester! I’ve been pretty anxious to get settled into a routine
and finally get my schedule, so I’m a lot less crabby and stressed now that I’m
actually registered. I can't wait to finally have a schedule in my planner! Time to celebrate by taking a nap. I had to say it was a
good day!